An Encouragement to Older Listeners, But Applicable to All

We began The Lefort Report in part to encourage older music lovers (ourselves included) to not merely hit “repeat” on the music of our youth, college and young adult years. We similarly encourage younger listeners to continue to seek out new bands and music as you grow older (right, we know–you’ll always be young).

Related to this, we petition you to read a well-written and analyzed piece written by Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal in which Fusilli rightly chastises Rolling Stone Magazine for its list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” Fusilli points out that “[o]f its 500 albums, 292 were released in the ’60s or ’70s, a highly improbable 59%. Only 8% of the listed albums were released in this century; only two were issued this decade—and one of those, “Smile” by the Beach Boys, was recorded 46 years ago.” And he correctly theorizes that “[t]his affinity for music of an ever-distant past may provide comfort for generationally biased boomer-era rock fans, but for the rest of us, it reinforces the fiction that popular music reached its zenith four decades ago.”

So to you boomers out there, we implore you to try some great rock music recorded after 1977. Purchase and give a good amount of your listening time to any one of the following artists’ albums if you aren’t familiar with them (many will be familiar with these “safe bets,” but you may not know all or even a majority of their “All Time” recordings): Radiohead, Wilco, Arcade Fire, Iron & Wine, The National, Bon Iver, and Clem Snide/Eef Barzelay (to get a feel, you can plug each of these artists into the Search tool to the right over there, and you’ll find at least one article on each). You won’t be disappointed.

And to you youngers out there, we invite you to give the stalwart ’60s and ’70s artists a good listen if you haven’t (chances are, though, that you have already been over-exposed, thanks to your parents–see above). But you should also continue to attempt to discover new bands (Like Pioneers, Allo Darlin’ and Field Report come immediately to mind) to add to your Death Cab/Dead Mau5/Drake/EDM mix.